declared a national historic landmark district in 1995 little tokyo near downtown los angeles has been the center of japanese culture in southern california since the early 1900s american

history tv toured little tokyo with bill shishima a docent at the japanese american national museum. mr. shashima was born in a little tokyo in 1930 and spent three years at heart mountain relocation center during world war ii. good morning. we'll have a short leisure walking tour of little tokyo right here is our largest artifact. after world war ii. and our local businessmen wanted a place to tell ours japanese american story. what happened during world war ii? and coincidentally. japanese veteran of world war ii also wanted a place to exhibit their story of world war ii. and this buddhist temple first built way back in 1925 was vacant and they got in contact with the city and were able to lease it out for 50 years for

one dollar a year. so the little tokyo businessman and the veterans. incorporated 1985 and they were able to open up the japanese american national museum in 1992 in this old buddhist temple. this temple is a replica from a temple and kyoto japan, but the canopy is made original ones made of wood here. it's made of concrete and the architect. mcclellan was first time builder buddhist temple, he was a specialist in making public schools, so we're not sure how and why he had this northern wall that's not japanese that's middle easterners, but way back in 1925, maybe that's when the king tut's tomb was recovered and also in hollywood.

we had the egyptian theater built then so maybe in theme with the egyptian theme that he made the egyptian wall here. this is the gateway to little tokyo home his little tokyo and this depict what happened here in the japanese american community in the center right here. we see three people right there with a dedication of the candles and then this young girl with a mallet. actually, she was supposed to be making japanese crushed rice or we call it more chi however is depicting. 1942 guard tower with this symbol executive order 9066. so she's actually demolishing the memories of world war ii up here it depicts some of the activities going on in the japanese american community such as basketball martial art

dancing and then some of the businesses that the japanese people were involved in is farming and produce marketing and go to business. so about 70% of all the produce issued in the southern california area was done by japanese american way up there on the upper right hand corner. we see where the third and fourth generation is taking care of the first generation japanese americans people that came from japan to america first came here. we call them essay or first generation. my parents were east days. i was born here. i'm japanese-american and called nisse the second generation and then my children would be sansay say or third generation and etc. up here you see? a black musician that's depict. that during world war ii little tokyo was vacated because of

executive order 9066 is this was the ghost town all people japanese ancestry were removed from the west coast meaning, washington, oregon, california and the southern part of arizona. so this was a ghost town and because the close proximity to the union station about four blocks north of here people came from the south to work in the war industries such as the aircraft industry the shipping industry, but they had no place to live and conveniently little tokyo was vacated population about 30,000 at that time, but we had close to 42 as much as 70,000 come from the south to work in the war industries during world war ii and this was renamed bronzeville like old bronze so the blacks from the south incorporated here and then this was the jazz center during

world war ii and the nightclubs were called breakfast clubs because the nightclubs were open to the wee hours in the morning. and this is where charlie parker and many of the black jazz artists started here in little tokyo. this photo mirror right here right there. it's unique in that they have. name tags on them. this is to show that during world war ii people of japanese ancestors who were incarcerated into the america's concentration camp. there are 10 of them during world war ii. and so atoms and dorothea lang professional photographers during world war ii were commissioned to go into men's in our camp one of the ten camps here in california. but and so adams and dorothea

lang were prohibited to take pictures of the guard tower. or prohibited to take pictures of the armed soldier and prohibited to take pictures of the barbed wire fence. they could take the barbed wire fence from a distance but not toasting up that you could see the barbs. so obviously these pictures were not taken by the professional photographers to show america what america's can't look like during world war ii right here. his hot steamed rice is put it in large vat and then with a mallet master down make it a rice paste. so we've just before new year's new year's been the biggest holiday in japan and still big holiday over here for the japanese american they make these more cheap. and the season the mochi would soy sauce or soy sauce and sugar and then they start putting in

sweet beans in this mochi. now, we have a japanese american concoction called mochi ice cream that started right here in the japanese village plaza right here is a scene of the heart of little tokyo way back in 1905. that's before the automobiles. and then some of the industries that the japanese were involved in was railroading citrus farming also right here. that's a picture bride. during early 1900s japanese came from japan to america to get rich and go back to japan, but that didn't happen, but it was basically a male population about 20 to one japanese men versus a female. so there's no social life. so some of them wanted to settle down so they start the picture bride system the picture bright system probably predecessor to eharmony.

person here would send a picture of themself back to japan usually family or friend and then the family or friend was solicit a bride for them at that time every family had a family registry. all they had to do was register the female's name in the family males family register and their officially married. so now with picture in hand they come to america easily port of entry was san francisco. so now they say wow. here's a handsome young man a 20 years old, but they find out that the groom is looks like 30 years old. so they're misled the picture was about 10 years old, but then it really got out of hand some people start sending handsome dudes picture back to japan and when the prospective bride came to america, they're really misled. so america as japan to outlaw picture, right? so it's outlawed in 1920, but basically served it's purpose because now the population was

about six to one male versus female. okay. behind me. is a japanese lookout tower a fire lookout tower. and we call it yagura yagura. so that's just the lookout tower way back in the late 1960s early 1970s little tokyo start to deteriorate so they wanted to rebuild little tokyo. so this was just an alleyway, but we had a chinese developer even though this is called japanese village plaza a chinese developer improved this place. we have about 50 shops here and also many of the shop owners are not japanese anymore. maybe we have some vietnamese or korean business people. so they all look asian yet, but this is called japanese village plaza right? here. we call this maneki cat.

this is a little cultural learning in america if i go like this, what does that mean? that means come here. but in japan they go this way so little difference in america we go come here this way and japan they go come here this way. so this cat is telling you to come in here and you see at the base right here a gold piece. so the cat is telling you come into our shop and make money for us. i'm not sure why he had eight ball eyes. that's it. and japanese community has many superstitious thing sometime. they said the right hand means something the left hand means something else whether it's so white cat a gold cat or black cat and means various things, but i'm not sure i can't keep up with all the myth that goes with the monarchy cat. you look at the rooftop. at the building behind me. what do you see there? he's seen gold fish like this is

to ward off evil spirit the fish in order to spit water. so that's for fire protection. so if you go to nagoya japan at the castle, you see a similar fish there. that's the ward off evil spirit or for fire protection. right here is one of three remaining grocery stores in the little tokyo area and the peak population in the 1930s and 40s. we had dozens of mama and papa type stores and the population about 30,000. population about 30,000 people japanese ancestry within a three mile radius of little tokyo today. this only remains three grocery stores in little tokyo where the residential population of about a thousand who can tell me about japanese poetry? what do we call the poetry?

tanka and haiku by the way, here we have it. haiku and tanka poetry haiku has three lines and 17 syllables and five seven five syllables. and it does not have to rhyme and it's about nature or feeling. and the expanded form of haiku is tanka tanka has five seven five seven seven syllables and five lines and it has talked about nature or feelings tunisugihara tuna sugihara was a diplomat representing japan in lithuania way back in 1938, and he defied the government's order to lead lithuania because he wanted to help the jewish people

there in lithuania to flee from the nazi coming to lithuania. so it's recorded that he saved about 6,000 jews from the nazis during world war ii and lithuania. but when he came back to japan, he was an outcast because he defied the japanese government not leaving lithuania when they told him to lead lutherania now. so they shipped them off to mongolia, but the owner of the property over there is a jewish descent and he wanted to honor tunisiahara so and about 10 years ago. he had tunisugihara's son come here for the education of the tunisugihara statue right here is the restaurant called cookie coco. does that mean anything to anyone? that's the japanese version of kakadoodle. so the japanese chickens cry out

coco coco not cockadoodledoo. so this is a chicken house. this is one of five buddhist temple here in little tokyo and like the christian church this first established here in 1904, but then this one went to the east side and then in the late 1970 1975 it came back here. and like to point out a little bit about the buddhist religion when the japanese came from japan to america, they they had to compete against christianity. i say compete. hate to say it. but religion is also business if you don't have a congregation no need for church or temple so when they came here, they found out that christianity has church services every sunday. so now the buddha is here in america has church services every sunday in japan. they only go to the temple for

weddings funerals and special occasions, but now in america we have it every day. plus they got westernized in japan. they do not have pews. go sit on the floor. whereas here we have pews now and then a little bit the difference about christianity and buddhism buddhist temples are basically are flat and built to the ground. whereas the christian churches go up and the church steeples go toward the heavens or the skies. so those are two basic difference christianity goes up and the buddhist goes down to earth. i like to stop here to show you what little toka used to be way back in the late 1800s. this was a commercial industrial area. so people didn't want to be here so many of the minority groups established here in little tokyo area first there was a jewish

population a black population filipino population and the japanese american community started way back in 1885. so this is remnants the railroads track siding that first served industrial area of little tokyo area. so in the early 1900s, they had a real estate. covenants that they cannot sell to the asians, so we were restricted and living throughout los angeles or even working in various places of los angeles. we could not do that. okay. we have these four holes there. what do you think those four holes were oh that's where the brass signage was. this is the james irvine foundation japanese garden. oh about 9 10 years ago little tokyo was rated and people took all the brass signage from

little tokyo to recycle and sell it. again, right here is where a brass sign used to be. this is for sight of a time capsule way back in 1980. they buried in the time capsule activities and things going on here in southern california. so it's supposed to be open and 2080, but i hope to get to sign back up because in 2018, no one will know what this signage is here for. right here is about the spaceship challenger as many of know the chartered lasted about 70 sack seconds in the air. and we had the classroom teacher christy mccullough on there. we had the black scientists. mcnair on there. we had judy resnick the observer

we had the jet first japanese american astronaut allison s onizuka on there. so this is to memorialize the challenger that first after about 70 seconds in the air. we have the oldest and largest japanese american a newspaper outside of japan the rafushimbo the first started way back in 1903 as a memography and twice a week and about 1921 it became a bilingual newspaper at japanese and english today. during its peak it had over 25,000 subscribers, but today i understand there are down to about 10,000 subscription of the raw fishing pole. we had right here this dedicated this block national historic

landmark. there happened to be 13 properties here on this one block. ironically. here's a christian church that was here built way back in 1922 and the other end is the buddhist temple. there's a timeline here you see this charcoal area this charcoal area symbolizes the 1940s and then the 1930s 19 20s 1910 1900 so tells you what was there during that period so you see in 1942 it says families waiting for detention in to gathered here. so this is where my family had to gather. a cart because of executive order 9066 president roosevelt issued and then general john d witt commander of the western forces issued 108 of this exclusion orders, and we were over here by all very sweet where los angeles was born way back in 1850s, so i was born

there 80 years later in 1930. we got this exclusion order 33 dated made the third 1942 we had to report to this church on may the 9th. so we had one weeks official notice to leave our home and report to the government. here we're supposed to come we could only take what we could carry basically two or three suitcases. we were prohibited to have a radio weapons cameras where to turn that into the government then we boarded buses. we bought the buses went to arcadia, california, arcadia, california the home of the santa anita horse race track. my family is fortunate we lived on the parking lot of santa anita horse race track. i say fortunate because my grandparents live in the horse stables and as much as i love my grandparents, i hate it to go

visit them because of the stench of the prior tenants the horses. today, this is the home of the east-west players about a 200 seat theater. here. we have visual communication center here and the arts. so this is three businesses in one since it's a national historic landmark. they cannot remove the cross up on the church building. so this is not a church anymore, but this is originally a christian church. that started in 1917 and built this church in 1922. okay, this sculptures dedicated to japanese town today. there's about three japan town or japanese town left in the united states prior to world war ii we had over 40 japan towns throughout the west coast, but

during world war ii the war relocation authorities suggested that the japanese do not congregate into little tokyo's or japan towns, but there's three remaining one here in los angeles one in san jose, california and the other in san francisco, california. so this is a monument dedicated to the three remaining japan towns in the united states. on this historic landmark, we have quotes quotes from people that live in the little tokier area and their comment about little tokyo area. so right here, they said that people from the countryside as far away as santa maria used to come to little tokyo get their japanese ingredients such as soy sauce and sake or tofu because they couldn't get those items throughout southern california. they had to come to japan japanese town to get those

ingredients right here is by haru hashimoto. she's a essay or first generation japanese and she started the mikawaya food chain here in little tokyo. this was a center of little tokyo and it speaked years in the 1930s 1940s and within a three mile radius. there was 35,000 people of japanese ancestry living within little tokyo today. there's only about a thousand left. this is a coban. koban in japan are police substations. why should we have a police substation here on the police headquarters across the street well in the early 1960s and 70s little tokens start to deteriorate we had lots of

people handling around the little first street breaking into the cars so our tourists start to die down. so now we have this coban here. there's office here for the police to be able to make the reports here. so they have black and white parked out here. so i have a police presence and little tokyo today. this is a visitor center you have literature here and we have japanese speaking volunteers that helped the tourists here in southern, california. this building here is very interesting. i didn't know it at that time, but my boy scout buddy owned this building when he was three years old. this is the kawasaki building. why did he have this building when he was three years old? well, it was the circumvent the law 1913 california passed the alien land law, which stated that if you're in asable to citizenship then you cannot own

property in california. so to circumvent the law the kawasaki family put this into his japanese american born citizen. so although he was only three years old to circumvent the law that he couldn't put it in his own name because his japanese alien, so they put it into akita kawasaki's name. so today, this is one of the oldest japanese own buildings in little tokyo. way back in 1980 say chiquito opened up a sweet shop or manju shop as the fugetsudo shop and his claim to fame is that he invented the fortune cookie all of you heard of fortune cookie. well, he invented the fortune cookie, but there's discrepancy. this is oh another japanese family here in southern california invented it and if you go to northern california, they said no a chinese invent the fortune cookie, but about 10

years ago a chinese archivist from boston, massachusetts got in contact with brian keto the grandson today that's operating the shop. he said indeed his grandfather was the originator of the fortune cookie. however, when say chiquito did the fortune cookie he put haiku poetry into the fortune cookie. whereas the chinese put the fortune in there and then commercialize it by giving it out. the local restaurants this is a sparrow building built way back in 1882. what do you think they had here? this is before the automobile. this was a blacksmith shop. so the sparrow building had blacksmith shop here and historically this is where the pentecostal movement first had their meetings upstairs in the

rooms up here the pentecostal movement way back in 1906. down this driveway again. it's one of the buddhist temples. this was built way back in 1940. and both the temple was built as a community center also, so in the sanctuary they do not have permanent seating so they could have maybe a dance hall during the evenings or on weekends. toyo miitake was a local professional photographer here in laura tokyo. when he was ordered to go into the camps. he wanted to take pictures wherever he goes, but we had to turn in our cameras into the government. so toyota mitaka kept his shutters and lens it took it into men's and our camp, which is about to earn the miles north

of here. and then he had a carpenter make a box camera for him. this box camera is three times larger than the original camera because today we're using it as a slide projector. so this slight projector shows activities going on in the japanese american community took these in he had a carpenter make him a box camera and he was taking pictures in men's and our camp. and then he got caught but fortunate for us we had a sympathetic camp director camp director assigned a caucasian lady with toiletake toyo. miyataka being a professional with composed the picture set the shutters and then the caucasian lady who come and click the camera. so technically toiletake stop taking pictures in the camps during world war ii, but because of the cap director i believe we have the most documented pictures of manzan art camp

because the sympathetic camp director. right here is the national center for the preservation of democracy. basically, it tells the democratic story of america of the various multi-ethnic groups during world war ii like the all black. tuskegee airmen, or maybe the prejudice against the filipino soldiers during world war ii or the hispanic soldiers or the jewish soldiers. so this tells about democracy during world war ii. you can learn more about little tokyo and the history of the japanese in the united states at the japanese american national museum website.

each week american history tvs

american artifacts takes viewers behind the scenes at archives museums and historic sites. next a tour of the japanese-american national museum in los angeles's little tokyo our tour guide is docent bill shishima who was born in a little tokyo in 1930 and spent three years at heart mountain relocation during world war ii. located near downtown los angeles little tokyo is one of three remaining in california. whereas many as 40 japantowns thrived prior to world war ii. los angeles first started way back in 1781 when 11 pablo doris or settlers came from mexico to get land for the king of spain in 1843 the first recorded japanese landed in fairhaven,

massachusetts hamannosuke, and he was a shipwreck sailor from off the coast of hawaii and the whaler ship picked up five japanese men and for them were left in hawaii, but hamonosuke was brought to fair haven, massachusetts, so he's probably the first recorded japanese to be here. and then in 1850 los angeles was incorporated at that time. we had about 1600 people in a square mile of 28 square miles today were about or million population and the square mile is about 469. but california was the site of the immigrants from japan the port of entry with san francisco. and the first colony was up there in northern california at gold hill about 30 miles south of sacramento, and it was the ill-fated guacamatu tea and silk

colony. they lasted about two years. so that was the first organized colony from japan. los angeles little tokyo started when we had also a shipwreck sailor from the san diego area. he came up here and then in 1885 he started the first japanese american restaurant here in little tokyo. common ground the heart of community and this instance were talking about the japanese american community here the united states. the japanese were enticed to go to hawaii the sugar plantation people came to japan to recruit workers. they said gee if you work three years in the sugar plantations of hawaii. it's equivalent to working 10 years in a factory since japan. so close to 1,000 people way back in 1885 went on 103 year labor contract to the sugar plantations of hawaii, but when

they got there, they found out differently. they had four minutes or lunas. they had whips they used the leather whoops on the workers. so slave like condition. so many of them got out of their three year labor contract escaped to maybe the coffee plantations or the pineapple plantations and some of them went back to the cities others were enticed to go to the mainland many of you heard of benjamin franklin. he was a great statesman. however, he wanted to keep america white. it's a way back in 1751 benjamin franklin says, he didn't want the blacks or the asians here in america. and in the 1850s america wanted to visit a transcontinent of railway from new york to california, but they couldn't get enough workers. so what did the america do they went to china to recruit to chinese to come and build the railroad after railroads were built. they didn't want to chinese

here. so they had the anti-chinese movement as early as 1879 every dog that's six of a color has his day red gentlemen to yellow german pale face freddy crowd him out as it is me this was 1879 three years later chinese were excluded in 1882. this is a actual. reptile remnants of world war ii this is one third of original barrack that was in heart mountain wyoming. that was the camp. i was incarcerated in. so we'll go on the inside and see the structure. during world war ii. we had 10 camps. seven western states. they are all similar but not the

same the smallest camp was about 7,000 the largest camp around 19,000. i was incarcerated in heart mountain, wyoming about 60 miles from the eastgate of yellowstone national park. i was 11 came came out at 14 years old. so basically three years and three months. i'll show you some illustration. this is by estelle peck. she was married to a japanese person so she came into the camp. she wrote the book lone heart mountain and this is some illustration of it. here is a hot pot belly stove we had cold fed into it and her california. they fed oil into it and arkansas. they used wood as a few. so those are some of the of the camps. by the way, we use all military

terminology. so we lived in barracks and then we ate at the mess hall. so we're fed three meals a day. this is what really broke broke up our family unity. as a family we sometimes eat breakfast together, but by lunch time and dinner time, forget it we're regulated by the dinner gong anytime. we heard the dinner gone. we ran to the missile lined up eight then went out to play or went to school so we didn't have chance to discuss family matters over the dinner table because we didn't eat together. and the latrines the woman in heart mountain complained so they put partitions but still no doors. so encamp they said tea they have to use strategy just use the bathroom if you go to the end stall that's the least amount of traffic. no it backfired. everyone went to peak to see if someone's in the end stall so i got the most traffic but on the

men's side we didn't have any partition so we had to sit next to strangers and do our personal business. this is probably the worst thing of camp life. and then we had the shower room the shower room was about eight feet by 10 feet on one wall. we had four shower heads and other one another four so about eight shower heads and a room about 8 by 10. so no privacy. you see the seven other people taking a shower there. and the woman then have showers and heart mountain. they had bathtubs so still you could see the seven other woman taking a bath. so no privacy. here is a pile of coal. that was one of my job as make sure we had enough coal to keep us warm throughout the evening. but as you noticed anytime we had any wind. we always had a dust storm because the camp was on raw dirt. they got the bulldozer scraped away that sagebrush and tumble

is and plopped on the barracks and that's what we live. so anytime we had any wind. we always had a dust storm. it was a partition here. so this used to be the smallest room 18 feet by 20 feet for family of two or three. this was the largest room. this is where my family was incarcerated by two parents by two brothers my two sisters myself, so there are seven of us about the size of it two-car garage 20 feet by 24 feet, and we only had one light bulb. we had one pot belly stove to keep us warm, but no water. what do we need water for well, to bathe to cleanse ourself to cook to drink, but we had no water here. so we had to go to the public laundry room or the public trees or go to the missile to get a drink of water or go to the trains to do our business.

so initially there was another unit. beyond here for family of four or five and then a duplicate it so total of six units and about or six families about 25 people lived in one barrack, which was 20 feet wide and 120 foot long. initially we didn't have any insulation so very cold that. we had happened to get one of the coldest winter and wyoming history minus 28 degrees. so we suffered the first winter but by the second winter we had insulation called celotex. the celotex is a small piece up there left up there about a half inch thick installation that we had throughout and most camps did not have a sealing but we did have a feeling so it cut down on heat as well as sound so some people said gee us kids were fortunate that our parents won't their raise their voice

because they'll be heard throughout the 120 foot of the barracks. one week's notice right there. you okay on the exclusion order. there's 108 of these exclusion orders that general john dewitt issued. moving 120,000 people japanese ancestry from washington, oregon, california and arizona right here. we have a world war. i veteran he's protesting but he was labeled as the enemy alien. so he was protesting but he had to go into the camps even though he thought for america during world war one. little known fact is that we had about 2,200 japanese latinos

japanese latinos from these white named countries central america and south america president roosevelt requested of all the countries to send people japanese ancestry here to crystal city, texas brazil had the largest japanese population, but they refused to cooperate with president roosevelt peru kidnapped around 1800. japanese peruvians went through the panama canal and brought here to crystal city, texas and the central american countries also had about 400 of them. cancarcerate it here in crystal city, texas president roosevelt wanted prisoners of war so during the war sweden mean a neutral country censorship grissom here to long island, new york there. they got 5,000 japanese some japanese latinos and some japanese that wanted to go back to japan from too late camp.

or so-called troublemakers so they got 5,000 of them boarded the ship gritsome grits home ship went around africa to india. there. they met a red cross ship with 5,000 americans that were stranded in japan and the exchange prisoners of war there. back from her fourth wartime journey of mercy the swedish exchange ship grips home arrives in new york harbor aboard our 663 americans home from nazi internment and prison camps. in the camps, they're trying to make it as normal as possible. so when someone passed away they trying to give them a respectful funeral service, but sometimes they could not get first flowers. so sometimes these flowers were made of paper so they had origami flowers, so they're trying to make abnormal situation as normal as possible. for example right here.

they chose the high school prom queen. she didn't have a beautiful crown, but at least they went through the procedure of electing the prom queen during world war ii life magazine presented this i sort of snicker at it because it could be either or japanese or chinese or korean or vietnamese. it could be any of those but i sort of snicker at it because this is say how you could tell the difference between a japanese and a chinese. heart mountain camp was infamous for the protesters right here is the court trial in cheyenne, wyoming 63 members of the heart mountain camp were got draft notices they resisted. they said unless you're free our family, then they will not served the uncle sam in the united states army, but the courts said no regardless of the

family situation they have to report to the service they refused so they got federal. penitentiary service two to three years. so a total of 85 protested from heart mountain, wyoming a total about 300 protested from the 10 camps. when we were incarcerated into the camps, everyone got one of these. they told us to go to the haystack and fill it with. hay so this was our temporary mattress. the military is not prepared to house 120,000 people. so initially we had to make our own mattress. it didn't smell too good and sometimes i poked us but eventually we got standard distribution of mattresses. sometimes you see these tin can lids. nailed to the floors why because they had not holes in them. and the knot holds anytime you

had any wind the dirt will come in through the floors. so to prevent that we put the tin can lids to cover the hose? and being from california, we didn't have winter clothing. so in wyoming the snow country. we're issued these world war one navy picots. so since everyone got a peacoat people had to identify their own. so this happened to be gyms peak code everyone got a peco. so these are all adult sizes. i was a young kid of 11 years old. so when i wore looked like the jacket was walking as i mentioned i was a young kid of 11 years old. so fortunate we had the boy scout movement. in fact heart mountain camp had the largest boy scout movement of all the camps. we had seven boy scout troops who had various cub scouts to girl scout to brownies. so we had thousands of kids in

organized sports to keep us active in the camps. this drum happened to go into the camps during world war ii and initially when i went into camp, it had a american flag and a japanese flag, but it wasn't popular to be japanese. so they changed the japanese flag to american flag there. everyone 17 or older had to fill out a loyalty questionnaire. or were you born or would you educated what newspaper do you subscribe to but the controversial question was questioned 27 and 28. basically it says will you give up the loyalty to the emperor of japan? people did not know how to answer that. 17 years old probably never been to japan never had loyalty to the emperor in japan, but they didn't know how to answer that. how could they give up their loyalty to the emperor japan if they never had it? so, but they could only answer yes or no.

so people were confused on that and then the real other one was that are you willing to fight for the military wherever called for and again, there's 17 years old. does that mean? yes you're willing to fight for america and go today or would they wait until you finish your high school and get your high school diploma and go fight for america at a later day. so those are the two controversial question number 27 and 28. this is about the cytofamily cytofamily had four boys three of them says they're gonna go fight for america the father protested. he says why should you fight for america? we were incarcerated behind barbed wire fence and armed guards no charges against us. no due process of law. but just because we look like the enemy we're incarcerated. so why should you fight for america? well these three boys insisted they're gonna fight for america

to prove their loyalty to america so they went overseas one of them got killed so the brother wrote to the father feel proud that your son gave the the supreme sacrifice for his country. so he was really sad about that, but then two months later, he got killed. so now the father is really concerned. so he asked the department of army to return the third son from combat area. he was refused on the ground that he had one more son at home, but fortunately he did get home. okay, initially the 104 for the second regimental combat team were issued that circular patch there this arm and the sword would dripping blood they said that's not us. so they give him permission to draw up their own patch. so they do the red white and blue background with a liberty torch. so that represents a hunter for president for 40 second regimental combat team. this is one of the models of one

of the ten camps. this is bands in our camp, which is located about 200 miles north of los angeles. and this was the only camp that had an orphanage right here. we have three barracks here. there's about 101 orphans. they were recruited from san diego all the way up to alaska and orphans. you think they're a threat to the military but 101 of them were incarcerated here in men's and our camp. manzan art camp had a population about 10,000 people here. and way in the back over here you see this. statute or hublisk so that was in the cemetery. so angeli. they go to pilgrimage so manzanar camp. you see the picture up here. so their young people third fourth generation now go up to men's and our camp annually

about april or may of the year and remember what happened to them during world war ii? i feel america is the greatest country in the world because president reagan way back in 1988 signed the civil liberty bill of 1988. he gave us an official apology from the white house everyone that was incarcerated in camp during world war ii are official apology from the white house. but this is not president reagan's signature. oh, that's president. george bush even though president reagan signed it in 1988. it was not implemented until 1990. so we got this official apology and we got a reparation of 20,000 dollars. that sounds like a lots of money. but are you willing to give up three years of your life for 20,000? i wish my parents got it. he lost his hotel and grocery business and he had to start all over again at 50 years old.

so i wish he got it, but he was long gone by 1988 it was a great feeling. i got twenty thousand dollars for the government. but i still felt my parents should have got it because he had to suffer all those years after he was 50 years old. he had to raise us five children, but for me, it was gravy. so i put it into this museum to build i put in my 20,000 plus to tell our story that this never happens to anyone again anywhere because just because we look like the enemy we were incarcerated even though we were young american citizens. after world war ii. i just had to finish up my education. i graduated from the local high school belmont high school and went on to los angeles city college eventually graduated from the university of southern california as a teacher. so i put in about 25 years in

teaching and hope that we learn from our mistakes and what happened to us in doing world war ii, but still i feel american didn't learn this lesson because after 9/11 what happened to the american arabs american muslim american people looked down upon them because they look like the terrorists. so that's what happened to us there in world war ii. we looked like the enemy during world war ii and then after terrorist attack the twin towers and the pentagon they look down upon the american heroes american muslim just because they look like the terrorists so they would have to learn from our world war ii lessons that should not happen again. this is the national center for world war ii monuments. and we have about 850 names here

people of japanese ancestry that fought for america during world war ii and you see the letter m o h behind some of the names that signified the medal of honor. there was only one person that fought during world war ii that got me of honor sadao muna mori but in 1999, they asked president clinton to review review the records of world war ii and after reviewing it president clinton upgraded 20 more people japanese ancestry to receive the congressional medal of honor. so now we have 21% of japanese ancestry that we see the medal of of honor during world war ii. and shall we say the biggest name that got it was in knowing daniel in norway. he lost his arm fighting for america and he is now the senator from hawaii senator dan in norway. so also we have a catch-all

memorial over here from the spanish-american war to vietnam iraq, everything right here catch all we have about a hundred names here that gave their life during the vietnam war. and then we have about 250 names here that gave their life for in the korean conflict. this is the go full broke monument the 10442nd regimental combat team during world war ii. the 442nd regimental combat team was the most decorated unit in military history for its size and length of service. they got over 9,000 purple hearts seven distinguished presidential citations and there's over 16,000 names here. they're randomly placed come by computer. so you cannot find someone's

name, but we have a index over there by the computer to locate anyone that fought during world war ii. so there's the units they fought with in the various ones throughout world war ii. here's the list of metal honor winners during world war ii was 21 names and the various decorations that they receive. you can learn more about little tokyo and the history of the japanese in the united states at the japanese american national museum website.